Convert MPC Live to MPC1000

Blasphemous to some I imagine, but as much as I love the Live workflow, I find I get lost in the sauce of the feature set. The solution was to snag a MPC1000 with JJOS2XL. So far I'm digging it and have caught right up to speed. I much prefer the simplicity and more focused approach these days. I also think MIDI timing is better but maybe that's honeymoon/placebo shit.

Anyways, I have an album worth of songs written in the Live (upwards of 30 tracks x 4-5 sequences), but want to convert these over to the 1000 to perform live and continue writing with that platform.

If anyone has done this at scale, I'd love to hear how you went about it. Of course, this is not a big deal as a one off, but because of the huge amount of stuff here, any shortcuts or tips are much appreciated!

Sequences:
1. Export midi per sequence from Live, import midi into MPC1000
2. Merge down sequences into 1 sequence then split up again
2. Real-Time midi from Live -> 1k and record multi channel midi
3. Accept the loss of 1:1 conversion and export audio clips as phrases

Programs:
1. Drop MPC live samples onto card and bring over to 1k. Rebuild programs from scratch
2. Resample MPC live straight with all fx and bake that into new samples for 1k programs
3. Convert live xpms to some other legacy mpc program that 1k can see? Not sure this exists

If any brave soul has done this, thank you in advance

I think you're setting yourself up for a giant time sink.

You've got an album's worth of music that was written on the Live. Finish it on the Live. That's what it was made on, and you'll spend far less time actually making music than trying to force a complete migration to a totally different platform.

I don't really see the value in spending weeks (or months) rebuilding 30+ tracks just so they exist on a different MPC. Even if you get the MIDI across, you're still rebuilding programs, samples, FX, sequence layouts, and probably troubleshooting little differences the whole way. That's a lot of effort for almost no creative payoff.

The reason you bought the 1000 was because its workflow clicks with you. Great - use that energy to write new music on it. That's where you'll get the biggest return. I'd hate to buy a piece of gear that inspires me and then spend my first few months using it as a conversion utility instead of an instrument.

If you absolutely need a few songs on the 1000 for a live set, I'd manually recreate those few. But converting an entire album just feels like busywork when you could be making new tracks instead.

There's a lot of things to consider here with this kind of job... and I'll mostly agree with Richie, that this *is* going to be a huge hassle, with an unknown payoff for you.

Few thoughts though first... to get out of the way
* What OS are you on for your MPC Live... 2.x or 3.x? They both have different implementations...
* Are you looking to have one song per project... or are you going to try and fill an entire album into a single project on the MPC 1k?
* 128mb on the 1k vs 2gb on the live *may* cause you some headaches as you may need to squeeze into memory constraints
* 32 note (mono) polyphony on the MPC 1k vs far more polyphony on the Live could be a problem
* Very limited FX on the 1k vs an insane amount on the Live... you're going to probably end up with a "smaller" sound on the 1k... depending on how you sample in
* 96ppqn on the 1k vs 960ppqn on the Live... you may find you've got timing issues/differences

With all that though... there's some fairly interesting benefits for doing this... *if* you can manage to work within the constraints of the MPC 1k, you *could* get all tracks loaded, and do fun things with Track Mute and mixing/programs per track on the 1k, that's just not quite as possible to do on the Live... so you may find it more performable...

What you'll probably find is you'll want to convert as much sound to mono as possible for the 1k, and aggressively pitch samples up an octave or two, and then pitch it down to save sample memory. You *can* record loops off your Live into the MPC 1k, and if they're layered you'll be able to save some polyphony and maybe memory depending on how you go about it. JJOS2XL/3 both offer key groups, so although there's no auto sampling here... it might be worth auto sampling instruments on the Live, sending the samples to the 1k, and then recreating programs on the 1k.

This is *all* going to be time consuming... and depending on what you find as fun/annoying could direct how you decide to go about it. It's really going to come down to how much you want to cram into the 1k though for a single project, how you think you want to go about sequence transitions, and if you're cool loading one song (or a handful) at a time... and what you're going to do in order to have a break between songs... if you've been performing live before... quite possibly things you've already thought of in general...

Personally, I'd suggest just picking two songs...
* Record one in as a bunch of extended loops... and the resequenced your song that way... it'll give you a sense for how much memory you're going to use per loop, how much polyphony you'll need, and roughly where the rough spots will be.
* I'd record a second song in and just sample in as many one shots as you can, and get a feel for what it takes to reprogram from the Live into the 1k. I fear you're not going to care for the results of routing midi out from the Live to the 1k and trying to record patterns this way... *but* the 96ppqn *could* be good enough... trust me though... it's going to depend. And then if you want to adjust timing beyond 96ppqn... you're either stuck recording loops... or recording one shots with a bit of "air" in front of it and then adjusting the start point... it's likely to be a hassle.

One other thought for you... saving to HDD/CF *tends* to be pretty straightforward and issue free, but you should know... depending on the quality of the HDD/CF you've got... sometimes the MPC 1k gets hung up loading a file... gives up... and moves on... leading to having samples that will read "?Sample01"... and it knows the name, but it is telling you the sample isn't loaded to memory... this can be a real pain in a live situation as you've just loaded a project... and you get to reload either individual samples... *or* if the CF card just got unmounted for some unknown reason... you'll need to reload from power on again... and *hope* it loads properly.

I've been moving back to using the 1k myself... and thinking through some of these aspects again... but I have to agree with Richie... you're likely to have a better experience starting more or less from scratch... or deciding how to redo some of your tracks into the MPC 1k... instead of trying to do them as 100% "they will be the same"...

Regardless, good luck!

I appreciate the thoughtful responses guys! I wrote most of these tracks in the OS 2.4 - 2.8 era. Everything was using song mode/track mutes/ and lots of keygroup programs. Since v3 has rolled out, I've been loving all the new features, but something clicked in my head one night, and I noticed I didn't have any finished tracks in over a year. I'm sure lots of you guys know how that goes. Sometimes the tinkering brain just takes over and you've got 20 half assed projects with one loop.

Some very valid points raised here, the most important one being, I'm a musician, not a bookkeeper. I think I'll take the solid advice here in regards to the full conversion and consider those tracks an end to a chapter. Thanks for talking me off that cliff haha.

It's true, I've already got several new tracks cooking on the 1k that hit the exact vibe I was searching for. The limitations are actually quite freeing. Honestly, the way certain things function with JJOS are actually much faster, including the grid edit mode (i loathe the touch screen grid edit on modern mpc).

I'm not currently playing live, so luckily I don't have any pressure to prepare right now. Some good tips on the live performance aspects too, and I'll have to really stress test the 1k in that regard. It may ultimately end up that I keep the 1k as the writing tool and bring out the Live for gigs. We'll see where I land with that. The Live Mk1 is a true work horse, and has never let me down. But, as amazing as the new v3 OS is, I don't have as much confidence in the rock solid nature of it.

Thanks again guys! Cheers

I've been messing around with getting some live performance sets together... trying things out on the MPC Live 3, MPC 1000, and Dirtywave M8. Might try the MPC Sample, but it has a few non desirable workflows that I'm not sure I'd appreciate for a live setup.

The MPC Live 3 (and other G1/G2 MPCs) offer the most advanced in the box workflows... and yeah... firmware 2.x (Gen1 only) will get you very close to an MPC 1k workflow... and I dug it. If you're stuck with firmware 3.x though, there's a lot to like here... but the workflows are not as efficient since you *must* have programs tied to tracks... However, the pro pack and clips makes it *quite* malleable to work with, and I've been working on techniques/tricks to cram *as much* as possible into a limited number of programs. The main benefit for the G1/G2 MPCs on firmware 3 is just the sheer amount of samples/fx/audio tracks/etc... and to some extent synths... that you have... the mixer is great... and an absolutely insane amount of automation you can do. Sure you can hook up a lot of other gear, but it's practically in the "why bother"... at least for me. And with the G2 MPCs... a single USB cable opens up an entire world of things you can do with a computer/tablet/phone...

The MPC 1k is probably the most low friction live device... being able to assign programs all over the place to multiple tracks makes it very flexible, and then with track mutes you can just go absolutely crazy. The benefit (and problem) with the MPC 1k is how much more it shines with external gear. Seriously... 128mb is a ton of sample time... and if you're willing to work in mono you 22.5+ minutes of sample time is honestly bananas if you manage it well enough. Given everything though, the MPC absolutely loves external effects and an external mixer... and external synths/samplers/etc... You've got to decide if you want to squeeze your workflow and sounds into it... or want something else to keep it going.

For me, the Dirtywave M8 is a solid contender here. It's small as heck... and you can rapidly put tracks together. It's got less polyphony than the MPC 1k, but a bit better FX, and the way you chain patterns together is insanely powerful. It forces you to keep things simpler, but you can get an exponential amount out of it from what you put into it. Happy to talk more about it, but not sure how many people around here care about it.

Anyways... take it easy and have a great day!